CloudJumper Blog

10 Years of the iPhone, 10 Years of the Cloud

The final Harry Potter book was dominating the reading world; the Writers’ Guild strike took a big bite out of prime time viewing, and the world was introduced to the iPhone.

The Early Players

At the now infamous Apple Keynote in June of 2017, Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, saying, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” While at that time he was talking about the iPhone — the first smartphone which would indeed change the way we think about consumer technology — he may as well have spoken about the cloud.

The cloud truly moved from fledgling to nascent in 2010 when Steve Ballmer announced on behalf of Microsoft, “For the cloud, we’re all in,” and thereby affirm their commitment to the technology. This marked a new era of cloud-based applications and innovations that would change the way that users in both the personal and professional environment would think about technology.

Just a year before, Amazon launched Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a never-before-seen location service based on virtual servers, which allowed third-parties to run and deliver their applications independently. The genesis comes from the fact that Amazon built its infrastructure to support theoretical peak workloads, which, given the demands at the time, resulted in it being underused. To get a possible return on what they invested in the infrastructure, Amazon offered portions of it on a rental basis, aided by virtual counterparts. In this way, this first iteration of the cloud was both created and commercialized simultaneously.

So that’s how it came to be, but what was the cloud-like way back then?

Some of the main advantages you expect from the cloud today were already a reality ten years ago. Reducing costs by eliminating onsite hardware, a more user-friendly and convenient experience for accessing data, outsourcing of management and maintenance – but the negatives were more of a concern then as well. As some still worry today, security was thought to be significantly compromised when data was moved to the cloud. Business managers were also concerned that they’d lose the ability to manage and secure their data if they trusted it to such a new technology. But today, ten or so years later, the risk isn’t in choosing to go with the cloud; it’s with those who decide not to.

Another concern was that the cloud — and its mechanical aspects — would tank the IT job market. If the cloud made it possible to all but eliminate onsite hardware, who would need in-house IT engineers, technicians and help desk representatives anymore?

Fortunately, the reality is quite the opposite. The cloud has provided a range of new job opportunities to members of the tech industry, with the need for cloud-expert engineers, app developers and more growing in greater demand with each year that passes. And that’s just jobs that are directly related to the cloud – what about those a degree or two away, like Uber drivers, streaming content creators, and data analysts? The cloud has been nothing but a boon for users, providers, and everyone in between.

The first major adopters of the cloud are further evidence of how beneficial it was, even a decade ago. Netflix was among the earliest to come on board, and it goes to show that today they dominate the Video On Demand market. By pivoting their business from selling and renting physical DVDs to providing streaming content with help from cloud-based applications and technologies, they’ve become an industry-leader and household name.

MSPs Must Adopt a Cloud-First Strategy

All of this is to say that you as an MSP operating in 2017 have to be cognizant of this. It’s not a “those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it” scenario; if you don’t learn from the cloud’s progress in the last ten years, you won’t even get a chance to repeat it!

Ten years ago, many IT support providers that would soon become MSPs were still break-fix shops; if you knew enough to execute that pivot back then, good for you. You’ve probably noticed that the break-fixers who didn’t evolve over the past decade soon went extinct. That same window is closing on the cloud – if you haven’t adopted a “cloud-first” strategy yet, you’re way behind and your time is running out fast.

First-mover advantage is disappearing quickly. Other MSPs in your area have likely already adopted a cloud-first strategy with their services, and probably seen great success. How long will you wait to make the change as well?

The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone!

As pioneers of the cloud industry, we’ve been developing our Workspace as a Service Solution, Cloud Workspace® for the past 16 years to ensure that it offers the most disruptive pricing, fastest capability for transition and launch, and most user-friendly design on the market.

As great as our Cloud Workspace® WaaS solution is for your customers, it’s just as beneficial to you, the MSP. This solution has unbeatable pricing margins, robust support capability, and flexible marketing options you won’t find anywhere else. Even better, this summer we’re launching JumpStart, our in-house designed migration tool that will make it easier than ever to transition your customers to the cloud.

It’s been ten years already – can you afford to wait any longer to join the cloud movement? Get started today by contacting the CloudJumper team: hello@cloudjumper.com or (844) 645-6789 to get started. Follow us on social media: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn.